State not giving in to prison hunger strikers

Thousands of state prisoners have again been waging a hunger strike to demand reforms in the way solitary confinement is carried out, but unlike two years ago, managers of California’s lockups aren’t about to give in.

After a pair of hunger strikes in 2011, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation agreed to re-examine the way it runs the state’s Security Housing Units, known as SHUs — and indeed, they did put in reforms that led to some prisoners being approved for transfer. But prisoners and their advocates say the state didn’t go far enough.

Earlier this month, 30,000 inmates launched their hunger strike at 22 prisons, and though the numbers dwindled to fewer than 1,000 after three weeks, those remaining said they were in it for the long haul.

“There is a tremendous amount of unity and spirit,” one of the strikers’ attorneys, Anne Weills of Oakland, said of the protesters.